It Happened Last Night*

I still can't believe Steven Colbert was shut out of the Emmys this year. I mean, I like Barry Manilow, but…. Anyway, I would have been rolling on the floor last night if my cat wasn't undergoing flea treatments at the moment.

The show held a competition among three Thomas Jefferson reenactors to see who was the best Jefferson.

After grilling them as only he can, which means I can't remember exactly what he was asking because I was blogging on the WICT dinner at the time, Colbert chose the winner by flipping a coin, a nickel of course, asking them to pick either "Monticello" or "Me." That's the sort of touch that separates the wheat from the chaff in the mocking trade, of which Colbert is a master.

He has opined on that pointy ear or his, but Colbert's most prominent feature is the archest eyebrow in the biz.

Colbert plans to give other founding fathers the same treatment, and I would set my TiVo if I had one and knew how. (Yeah, go ahead and mock me). Actually, I would have already set it for the show's weekly House district profile, which I have praised here before and will again because, well, I can.

Colbert ended the hilarious bit with the call for any Button Gwinett impersonators. Gwinnet, from Georgia, is a somewhat lesser known signer of the declaration of independence who has become somewhat better known for being a lesser known signer, if you get my drift.

I have been told by people who never saw Gwinnett that I bear a striking resemblence to him.

*Anybody recognize the cultural reference in the headline to another Colbert? Just aksing.

By John Eggerton.

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